Thus, in contributions to science, literature, religion, and even politics, as attested by the activity of the periodical press, do the Slave States miserably fail,--while darkness gathers over them, increasing with time.
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
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Of these, Massachusetts had 51, or more than twice as many as all the Slave States; while South Carolina had but one.
In the Free States the authors were 73; in the Slave States, 6,--Massachusetts having 17, and South Carolina none.
Of the authors mentioned in Duyckinck’s “Cyclopædia of American Literature,” 434 are of the Free States, and only 90 of the Slave States.
Of the poets mentioned in Griswold’s “Poets and Poetry of America,” 122 are of the Free States, and only 16 of the Slave States.
Of the poets whose place of birth appears in Read’s “Female Poets of America,” 71 are of the Free States, and only 11 of the Slave States.
Out of the Free States come all whose works have a place in the permanent literature of the country,--Irving, Prescott, Sparks, Bancroft, Emerson, Motley, Hildreth, Hawthorne; also, Bryant, Longfellow, Dana, Halleck, Whittier, Lowell,--and…
But what name from the Slave States can find entrance there?
This simple fact discloses something of the aversion to Slavery which is aroused even in the Slave States.
In general, the value of lands in Slave States adjoining Freedom is advanced, while the value of corresponding lands in Free States is diminished.
Slavery is a bad neighbor; Freedom is a good neighbor.
As in the value of lands, so in all other influences is Slavery felt for evil, and Freedom felt for good; and thus is it clearly shown to be for the interest of the Slave States to be surrounded by a circle of Free States.
At every point is the character of Slavery more and more manifest, rising and dilating into an overshadowing Barbarism, darkening the whole land.
Never was the saying of Montesquieu more triumphantly verified, that countries are not cultivated by reason of their fertility, but by reason of their liberty.
Liberty is the powerful agent which drives the plough, the spindle, and the keel,--opens avenues of all kinds,--inspires charity,--awakens love of knowledge, and supplies the means of gratifying it.
Liberty is the first of schoolmasters: nay, more; it is the Baconian philosophy of Civilization, through which the powers and activities of man are enlarged beyond measure or imagination.
It is in the Character of Slavery itself that we are to find the Character of Slave-Masters.
Slavery is founded on violence, as we have already too clearly seen; of course it can be sustained only by kindred violence, sometimes against the defenceless slave, sometimes against the freeman whose indignation is aroused at the outrage.
It is founded on brutal and vulgar pretensions, as is unhappily too apparent; of course it can be sustained only by kindred brutality and vulgarity.
The denial of all rights in the slave can be sustained only by disregard of other rights, common to the whole community, whether of the person, the press, or speech.
Where this exists there can be but one supreme law, to which all other laws, statute or social, are subordinate,--and this is the pretended law of Slavery.
The swagger of a bully is called chivalry; a swiftness to quarrel is called courage; the bludgeon is adopted as substitute for argument; and assassination is lifted to be one of the Fine Arts.
Long ago it was fixed certain that the day which makes man a slave “takes half his worth away,”--words from the ancient harp of Homer, sounding through long generations.
To aver that on this same day all his worth is taken away might seem inconsistent with exceptions which we gladly recognize; but, alas! it is too clear, both from reason and from facts, that, bad as Slavery is for the Slave, it is worse…
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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